The Standard: Serial entrepreneur backs PH start-ups

Filipino serial entrepreneur and investor Jose “Joe” Maristela III announced through his venture capital firm, Katalyst.PH, a new wave of investment fund amounting to $1 million.

The ecosystem still faces many barriers in the Philippine startup scene despite the emergence of local startup accelerators, innovation hubs, venture capitalists and angel investors as capital flowing in is too small compared to other markets.

The government roadmap in creating 500 startups with total funding of $200 million and valuation of $2 billion by 2020 is quite a stretch, but not impossible because of the limitless possibilities that tech start-ups have, he says.

Maristela’s outlook in the Philippine start-up economy is very positive adding to his high regard for the talents and skills of Filipino entrepreneurs, a series of investment rounds coming from his pocket is imminent. With Satoshi Citadel Industries’ recent undisclosed amount of seed funding from Korean web giant Kakao’s venture capital arm KVG, Maristela is currently driven to replicate this through the new wave of investment fund he is putting in.